First, here's a photo taken from DIL's Facebook of my naughtiest grandchild, the one who loves to stomp on my foot and then laugh at my mock anger.
Our star jasmine bush is flowering and giving off a wonderful perfume which I can enjoy whilst at my computer next to an open window.
I always watch tv with the Closed Captions for the hearing impaired turned on as I find actors mumble a lot.
Recently I have been able to access a source for some tv series like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Wire and a few others, shows that were either on Pay TV (which we don't have) or that I had missed, and later learned that they had been critically acclaimed.
But these came without subtitles, and even watching them on my iPad with headphones on loud, the characters still mumble.
The solution was to add the subtitles myself.
I've found that lots of subtitles in different languages for movies and tv shows can be found on the net and downloaded in the form of .srt files.
Most of the time, the subtitles are in sync, but every so often a file or two would be badly out.
Google to the rescue again. I found a free subtitle editor, and after downloading and learning to use it, syncing the wayward subtitles was easy enough to do.
I use closed captions a lot; thought I was the only one who could not catch the conversations on TV movies. I also discovered some disks bought cheaply in China had ridiculous captions, captions which were computer translated from Chinese captions! Thus Ray (the famous boxer) became "Thunder".
ReplyDeleteI've reached a stage where, if a tv show doesn't have closed captions, I don't bother watching it. If only real life had closed captions!
DeleteKM, you probably know why “Ray” became “Thunder” via two (machine) translations. First translation (by sound): “Ray” -> 雷 (Pronounced “Lay”, there is no “R” consonant sound in Chinese). Second translation (by meaning): 雷 -> “Thunder”. Machine/ computer translation often produces howlers.
DeleteYK, I did figure it out eventually, but some other strange captions defied any logic. BTW there is R consonant in standard Chinese, just that southern speakers corrupted it to a Z sound. My blog is reshui (.blogger.com) or hot water, which most of us pronounce as ze shui.
DeleteThe “r” sound in Mandarin Chinese is very interesting. It is nothing like the “r” sound in English or any European language: see
Deletehttps://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/pronunciation/The_%22r%22_sound
Strangely, as the above link says, the “r” sound is somewhat close to the pinyin ch-, sh-, and zh- sounds, which is why we sometimes hear Chinese speakers pronounce the “r” sound like an English “z” sound. As we know, Chinese is not a phonetic language. Each Chinese character is a homonym (with a specific sound value). So to transliterate a sound in “Ray”, the closest homonym to use is “Lei” or “Lay”. There are many characters with that sound, e.g. 泪 (tear as in tear drops) or 累 (tired) or 雷 (thunder) and others. It happens that 雷 is also a Chinese surname. Actually transliterating non-Chinese names or terms into Chinese (Mandarin or other Chinese dialects) is quite interesting. It often captures the sound and the spirit of the original foreign word, e.g. the Chinese terms for “mini-skirt”, “ichiban” (Japanese for “number one”), and so on.
"...the one who loves to stomp on my foot and then laugh at my mock anger..." Muahahahahahahaha!!!! He's so hilarious, so lovable!!! Must be so endearing, that cute little boy.
ReplyDeleteI have a jasmine plant in my garden too - grown quite big now. My father planted it when we first moved into our house in the 80's - it never grew for years and it never died either and then, suddenly it started growing. I guess the roots must have broken through the hard soil - we bought the house second-hand, around 10 years old so the ground had become quite hard. I love the fragrance of the flowers when they start blooming, very refreshing.
He's very naughty - must be watched every second or things get destroyed. The other two are very good obedient children, not this one. Our jasmine blooms twice a year, in Spring and Autumn.
DeleteArthur, there seems to be an eqally luxuriant bush of purple flowers on the left of the jasmine bush. What plant is that?
ReplyDeleteThat is one of the many varieties of nightshade. related to, I believe, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and peppers. This one only flowers though and has no scent. Also some deadly varieties as I vaguely recall it being used as a poison in a Shakespearean play - can't recall more than that.
Delete"Deadly nightshade" is mentioned in Macbeth. Hope the one in your garden does not belong to the poisonous type.
DeleteThanks, Prof. And I'm the one who did English at uni. :$
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